With regard to the swift boat controversy, a quick lesson in kairos from the greatest American pagan writer, William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” — Requiem for a Nun.

The Supreme Court rejects Michael Newdow’s appeal to reopen his case challenging the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance. Read more.

A devout Christian lab worker at MIT, machinist Mark A. Peterson, has filed a lawsuit contending that supervisors failed to stop a 15-year campaign of harassment and ridicule against his religious beliefs, but instead joined in “‘openly telling jokes about God.'” J.M. Lawrence ofThe Boston Herald reports on the complaints listed in the lawsuit, which include co-workers wearing phony clerical collars, calling Peterson “Jesus,” blasting Rolling Stones’ songs at him, making verbal threats and stealing his property. Lawrence can’t resist his own jibe though, noting the lawsuit’s incorrect listing of the Stones’ song in question as “Symphony for the Devil.”

“‘When you grow up Catholic, I remember being encouraged to think of Jesus as your friend. Just a friend, like the friends you had on the playground, or in school. And I can remember that that was a part of my developing thought life when I was a child, having conversations with Jesus in my head, as if he were one of my playmates. . . . He was a child, just like me.'”Cathleen Falsani, religion reporter for The Chicago Sun-Times, speaks with Republican senatorial candidate for Illinois, Alan Keyes, about the development of his personal faith.

Yesterday Pope John Paul condemned human cloning as an arrogant attempt to improve on God’s creation, Reuters reports. Less than two weeks ago, British scientists were granted the first license in Europe to clone human embryos for medical research.

A Jewish community center in Paris was vandalized and burned by neo-Nazis on Sunday, reports The New York Times. The attack falls between two anniversaries: the August 18 commemoration of the Red Cross entering a detention camp and freeing 1,500 Jews awaiting deportation to death camps in Germany, and the liberation of Paris from the Nazis a week later.